I want to share some positive things we've been experiencing over at my house, because sometimes we only talk about the challenges ... and its so good when you can see your hard work coming into flower.... so let me tell you about some things that happened today. I hope that some of these examples help you see how this works, because our relationship is close enough that its not adversarial and when we encounter a snafoo we try to deal with it differently than an adversarial household would, I can only imagine he would have gotten yelled at in the book-hitting situation. So I hope you are blessed by this!
First, David is a great sibling, he amazes me with how not-jealous he is. Today he gave Maya his little truck and said "share with Maya!" ... shes too little for a truck, but it sat there on her chest for a while... lol... Later he did it again... he has a little notebook with a pencil, and he gave it to her to "share." I love that he is doing this on his own and that he's getting it. When he "shares" I encourage him, I told him "she's too little for that toy, but its so nice that you are sharing... its nice to share!" IE use positive reinforcement when you can...
He asked to hold her again, and he sat there with her on his lap with the biggest proudest smile you've ever seen. Shortly after he held her, I had her on my lap and he was helping me put away his books on his book case and he out of the blue takes a book and wacks her on the head.
Now because I have a close relationship with David I could see he didn't do this in malice, he had the "playful" look on his face, he wanted to play with her.... Maya starts screaming because it hurt her, and I held her up the way she likes and patted her on the back and said "awww, you hurt her David.... you didn't mean to hurt her did you?" And David had this horrified/ashamed look on his face... and I said "Maya, David didn't mean to hurt you... he's sorry.... sorry Maya!" and David pipes up with "sorry Maya!" I didn't even have to make him... and I wouldn't have, for the record, because I think that people should say sorry if they are sorry and not because a parent is forcing them to...
A week ago DH took David out on a daddy-son date. He bought him a truck on this date. The next day we were talking about his truck, DH at work, and I said "boy that was sure nice of daddy.... you should tell him thank you when he gets home! it was nice for him to buy you a truck wasn't it?" .... tonight when DH came home, and went to tuck David in (who was in bed but not asleep yet, and the truck was right next to the bed) and David points at the truck and says, out of the blue, "Daddy got truck!!.... tank you!" he remembered from that conversation a week ago and put it into practice all
on his own .... now doesn't that mean so much more than if I had lined him up when DH got home and said "tell daddy thank you for the truck or you won't get ____" Yes it does!
This all happened today....
Now this is not to say I am the perfect parent or that David is the perfect kid. We've had our stages where I wanted to pull my hair out almost every day trying to work with him... he was born with the spirited/strong willed temperament.... just like mommy
.... but when we go through these stages where I see all of my hard work from those hard times coming through, I know I am making the right choice and its worth it. When he was just past two every day was a challenge, and at the end of the days it wasn't uncommon for me to tuck him into bed and go into the living room and bawl to my husband that I was a terrible mother and had no idea what I was doing because I was putting in effort and seeing little fruit... but then a couple months later every day is beautiful and he's such a sweet kid
I hope this encourages someone.
I hear there is another one of those challenging times when they turn 3.
